Go wild
Your guide to getting closer to nature this month
BOOK HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH
Welcome to the world of plankton
Planktonia
WHILE MANY SPECIES MIGRATE TO their feeding ground or to their breeding area just once a year, there’s a migration that happens every night – but it’s by a creature so small you’d be forgiven for having overlooked it.
For plankton, their migration begins at sunset, when they rise up through the ocean, eating plant plankton and other delicious morsels as they go. These microscopic creatures descend just before dawn to the depths of the ocean to hide during daylight hours. The next evening, the process begins again. Although the cloak of darkness provides a safer passage for plankton, there are still predators everywhere, with jellyfish, basking sharks and blue whales lurking in the shadows.
Featuring stunning detailed images throughout, Hoyt’s latest book examines the nightlife of these tiny ocean plankton and the stories of the wildlife photographers that join them in darkness to capture their vertical migrations.
Thanks to the increase in popularity of both macrophotography and diving in the open sea at night, we now have visual evidence of just how eclectic and vibrant these plankton are. Planktonia is a tribute to these photographers and the scientists they work with to document the many species and their unique attributes and behaviours.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Erich Hoyt
The conservationist and author discusses why we should “pay more attention to the small stuff”.
Why have you dubbed this “The greatest migration on Earth”?
We hear a lot about the great migration of the Arctic tern, which is certainly the world’s longest migration – 55,293 miles annually between the Arctic and Antarctic. Yet even in the top 10 lists of ‘best migrations’, usually featuring wildebeests, monarch butterflies and humpback whales, there’s no mention of this vertical migration of zooplankton. They are not as great in distance, but in terms of numbers of individuals, in number of species and in context – covering the world’s oceans from the tropics to the edges of the ice caps – Ithink that there are strong arguments to call this “The greatest migration on Earth”.
To paraphrase the late evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson (who was talking about ants), we need to pay more attention to the small stuff that runs the world.
How did you go about choosing which images to feature in Planktonia?
The research, collection and final selection of all the photographs took many months. They were selected from more than 10,000 images that I looked at.
I tried to focus on five or six key places around the world where blackwater photography and research is taking place. Then it was a case of corresponding with the photographers in each location and going through their images, gaining an understanding of which species were special in each area and learning about their stories and unusual behaviour.
I found that it was very much a new and in-process branch of photography. I was fascinated by how the photographers had, just in the last several years, begun to work with scientists from the National Museum at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC, and other institutions, even beginning to collaborate on scientific papers. We started out thinking that this book would be a maximum of 100 pages, but the extraordinary quality of the images and the stories around them led us to produce a 176-page book instead.
Have you seen this migration in action, and what was it like to see?
I’ve seen it happen at night, watching over the side of a small boat while monitoring the nocturnal behaviour of orcas and waiting for them to show up. That’s when I first noticed it years ago and became intrigued. If you shine a light down into the water, you can see tiny planktonic life swarming all around.
ATTRACTION
Yorkshire Natural History Museum
Open now. £4 per adult, £2 per child, £10 per family of four
Lovers of natural history museums will have another venue to add to their ‘to visit’ list as a new museum is opening in the Steel City of the UK (aka Sheffield). It will house a number of specimens that will showcase the paleontology, botany and geology of Yorkshire, including fossils such as ammonites (above) and belemnites.
CHILDREN’S BOOK OF THE MONTH
The Happiest Lion Cub
By Oleksandr Shatokhin, translated by Zenia Tompkins. Red Comet Press, £12.99
HEAD TO THE “FARWAY AFRICAN savanna” in this adorable story by Ukrainian artist and children’s book illustrator Oleksandr Shatokhin, whose works have featured on the streets of Paris in recent months andwho has an upcoming book set in the future after the war. Translated by Zenia Tompkins, this is Shatokhin’s first book to be available in English.
In it we meet a rather unusual lion cub prince who dreams of being a musician and playing in an orchestra. This cub’s father is king of the savanna and of all the animals, and believes that a real lion and his son, the future king, should “roar loudly, hunt… maintain a regal silence… and other such things”. Will the prince have to abandon his instruments and dreams? Fortunately not, as it’s a heart-warming and happy story of following your heart, being brave and helping others.
Shatokhin’s illustrations bring the story to life, sharing the joy of music, the skin-soaking feeling of heavy rain and the spookiness of a prickly thicket.
BOOKS ROUND UP
A Year Of Birdsong
Author and birder Dominic Couzens has written an essay for each week of the year on birdsong around the world, from the reed bunting to the common myna. Each is accompanied by an illustration by award-winning artist Madeleine Flloyd, and a QR code to listen to the birdsong.
The Elephants of Thula Thula
Francoise Malby-Anthony is the owner of a game reserve in South Africa. Following on from her 2018 book An Elephant in my Kitchen, this new book details how the Thula Thula reserve and its wild residents have been faring, and the challenges she and they have had to overcome.
The Golden Mole
This book revels in the weird and wonderful lives of our planet’s animals. For example, did you know that a pangolin’s tongue is longer than its body? Or that a giraffe was once gifted to the King of France and then walked through the streets of Paris wearing a couture raincoat?
Bird Photographer of the Year: Collection 7
Celebrating the beauty of birds, this book brings together the winning and shortlisted images from the seventh year of Bird Photographer of the Year, announced in early September 2022 and featuring a foreword by the naturalist, conservationist and explorer Steve Backshall.
ID GUIDE
Falling leaves
Enjoy the beautiful yellow, orange and red hues of falling leaves this autumn and learn to identify the different species. For more ID guides, visit our website: discoverwildlife.com/identify-wildlife
ENGLISH OAK
Turning yellow-brown from October, the lobed leaves of the oak are a familiar shape to many.
HAWTHORN
The hawthorn bears distinctive leaves, which drop from November, and bright red berries called haws.
BEECH
The pointed oval and copper-coloured leaves of beech can often stay on the plant over winter.
EXHIBITION OF THE MONTH
Darwin in Conversation
Cambridge University Library, until 3rd December, free entry
Missing for 20 years, two small notebooks written by Charles Darwin were returned anonymously to the Cambridge University Library in April this year – in a pink gift bag. The notebooks included his famous Tree of Life sketch and were returned in the original blue box with a note saying “Librarian, Happy Easter X”. Now these notebooks are going on display in the library, alongside some of the 15,000 letters that Darwin wrote and received, Darwin’s own first edition of On the Origin of Species, and illustrated sketchbooks from his voyage on HMS Beagle between December 1831 and October 1836.
We’re all familiar with the stern portraits and statues of the scientist, but this correspondence and exhibition provides us with an insight into the man himself, and the people he spoke with. The Library has also commissioned work from the photographer Leonora Saunders, using current day contemporaries posing as some of Darwin’s correspondents.
The exhibition runs until early December, and will transfer to New York Public Library in 2023.
MEET THE VOLUNTEER
“I even stopped calling myself a shark scientist”
When Dr Lauren Simonitis began volunteering, she found a strong community and amazing support.
WITH A PHD ON BONNETHEAD SHARKS AND now employed as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Washington’s Friday Harbor Labs, you’d expect Lauren Simonitis to be a prominent member of the shark science community. However, it was only when she became a member and volunteer of Minorities in Shark Science (MISS), when it launched in June 2020, that she finally felt welcomed.
Why did you first get into volunteering?
When I attended my first shark scientific conference, I felt extremely ‘othered’. I was constantly in rooms of people that didn’t look or act like me, and who didn’t respect my presence in the shark science community. I even stopped calling myself a shark scientist after that, because of the negative association I had with the term, and it wasn’t until I found MISS that I felt comfortable associating myself strongly with shark science again. The sense of community and support I found through MISS was unparalleled, both through its members and the ‘Friends of MISS’ allies who don’t identify as gender minorities of colour, but want to support us.
What does your volunteering involve?
I mentor high schoolers, undergraduates and graduate students, as they navigate their path through shark science. I also plan professional development workshops on how to write scientific papers or navigate scientific conferences, as well as social events that allow our members to network and socialise. My proudest moment has been working on our upcoming book, of which I am the lead on a chapter, and being named as MISS Member of the Year 2021. It is a testament to MISS that it takes time to thank and recognise its volunteers.
Do you have any hopes for your volunteering future?
The aim of MISS is to not only help sharks (we love them!), but also to help others who don’t feel represented in this world. As someone who grew up speaking Spanish with my family but English in a science education setting, I struggle to communicate my science in Spanish. I would love to create a group of members who have a similar experience, so we could work together to perfect our Spanish in a scientific setting.
5 THINGS WE LOVE
1 Steve Backshall Splash Baby Rainsuit, £39.99, mountainwarehouse.com
2 Poppy Meadow Fabric Notebook, £11.50, sophieallport.com
3 Four Island Rum, £39.95 for 70cl, lostyearsrum.com
4 Cascadia, £39.99 , alderac.com
5 Baby Blue Round Elephant Mosaic Kit, £24, montetdesigns.co.uk
